


Ways to Say (I love you)

by tarmetiel



Series: Ghostverse Vingettes [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Blood and Injury, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, POV Jason Todd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25598065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarmetiel/pseuds/tarmetiel
Summary: Jason doesn’t express love in words.He thinks about saying it. He stays. He keeps breathing. He holds hands. He asks him to stay. He yells. He writes.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Series: Ghostverse Vingettes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855324
Comments: 6
Kudos: 121





	Ways to Say (I love you)

**Author's Note:**

> This work takes place about six months before "To Become a Ghost".

He holds a brown paper bag tight in one hand. It only takes minutes to get to his intended destination. Nightwing had perched himself on the back of a gargoyle while overlooking Gotham, and Red Hood startles him just enough for him to notice as he swings down to land near him. Red Hood cocks his head to the side, holds up the paper bag, and informs Nightwing that he brought donuts. Nightwing kisses Red Hood’s helmet, he’s so excited; much to Red Hood’s hidden amusement. The stakeout goes well, and after collecting the information on their case, Nightwing and Red Hood head out together into the night. Heading home.

When it’s almost dawn, Dick curling into his side with a sleepy mumble, Jason thinks of those three words that he desperately wants to say but can’t.

* * *

The first time Jason hears those three words, wonderfully whispered in his ear, he forces himself to breathe deeply, evenly. He closes his eyes, shifting his body restlessly in the bed. He needs to sit up, needs space between their bodies, so he raises himself out of the warm sheets and swings his legs off of the bed. He braces his elbows on his knees, pillowing his head in his hands. He tries to breathe.

Dick means them; Jason can’t say them back.

He hears the bed shift with movement. Feels a hand on his back, stroking down his spine. His eyes fly open and he glances towards Dick, whose hand wanders into Jason’s hair. If it had been any other, Jason would’ve broken their wrist, but Dick? Dick’s touch is always right. Always calming. His presence grounds Jason without binding him. His smile is unwavering, understanding. So Jason allows the hand to stray through his hair and down his back. He lets the rhythm of the strokes down his spine slow his breathing. Even with this panic running through him, riddling his head with no-win scenarios and pain and death, he lets Dick pull him back into bed.

Jason stays in Dick’s arms all night.

* * *

Stay. That’s the only word he can pick out. Jason can’t understand everything flying from Dick’s mouth, but he can pick out that one word. He’s on his right side, his head cradled in a hand. Dick is over him, blood splatters his perfect face, and tears seep out from under the mask. Jason reaches up to brush away the tears, but Dick stops him with one blood-stained hand. Dick moves his hand back to pressing hard on Jason’s side. 

He realizes that he is the reason Dick has blood all over him.

Jason doesn’t remember what hit him. He remembers running the rooftops with Dick - or was it Nightwing? - He remembers talking about groceries. He remembers he saw...something. And he pushed Dick off the rooftop for some reason. Now he’s bleeding out behind a gargoyle and he can only see tears. Tears and blue eyes and pain. Did Dick get hurt too? Or is all that blood his?

He can’t leave him like this.

Jason knows he needs to breathe, even if it hurts, because the more oxygen he gets now the longer his brain will keep firing neurons and all that shit. Breathing means staying, and Dick wants him to stay. He keeps expanding his lungs, filling them with air from this city that he loves and hates. Every breath will keep his heart pumping blood. He will keep concentrating on Dick, in front of him. He will stay for this man. He doesn’t want to die again, not now.

Jason stops breathing.

* * *

With a deep inhale, Jason wakes in his old room in the manor, hooked up to machines. He can feel the bandages around his body, tight and dry. He hears voices yelling, but he only sees Alfred in front of him, fussing with his I.V. bag. Jason wants to know what the yelling is about; but before he can open his mouth, Alfred calls softly that he is awake. 

Dick appears at his side and the beeping of the heart monitor he’s hooked up to spikes.

Before Dick can make any comment on that interesting tell, Bruce looms in the doorway. Alfred smiles at Jason, at Dick, then turns to leave. He makes a shooing motion at Bruce. They both step out of the room, Bruce hesitating at each step. Jason tries to focus on Dick, but it’s harder than he knows it should be. He asks how bad it was, his voice rusty with disuse. He watches Dick grimace and shake his head. 

It was bad, then.

Sidestepping the question with his usual grace, Dick says he has been at the manor for three days, so it’s time for Jason to come home with him to recover. Jason doesn’t know what to think. This is new, this is different. Their former schedule was unpredictable. This will be the two of them in an apartment for weeks, if not months, depending on how hard Jason pushed his body this time.

At least he wasn’t dead.

Dick is fussing with medical equipment, eyes darting between him and the stats monitors, obviously straining to be casual. A light flush decorates his cheeks. Jason reaches towards him, grimacing, and tugs on his sleeve. Dick turns immediately. Their eyes meet, hold. Jason is staring into depths of emotions, concern and worry and relief and anger and frustration are swirling behind the blue. It’s too much for him, to see how upset Dick is about this. A year ago it wouldn’t have mattered. 

Jason grabs Dick’s hand, intertwining their fingers, and holds on tight.

* * *

It's Ridiculous to him that Dick insisted on sleeping on the couch. The bed felt cold without him. The room felt cold without him. And maybe it was the drugs talking, everything is more grey without him. Besides, when Dick wasn’t here Jason got bored. And when he gets bored, he will inevitably get stupid. He couldn’t tell how, with a wall between them, Dick would show up right when he was about to do something stupid.

Even at two-eighteen in the morning.

He has one foot out of the bed when Dick saunters in. A sarcastic query is met with shamed silence. Jason moves his other foot to the edge of the bed. Dick makes a face, Jason drops his foot to the ground. Dick rushes forward, Jason smiles. Dick helps him up, helps him to the bathroom, helps him back to bed. Jason tugs at his hand. Dick hesitates.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Slips out of his lips.

Jason grunts in frustration, makes a face. He pulls Dick down to the bed, arranges his limbs accordingly. Slowly, painfully, nestles himself into the crook of Dick’s arm. His head is resting on Dick’s shoulder. He can feel Dick’s racing heart, can feel how tense he is, and Jason just wants him to relax. It’s Jason’s turn to hesitate.

Jason asks him, haltingly, to stay here, next to him, forever.

* * *

It’s hard watching him patrol alone. Nightwing has a city to protect and here Jason sits until he can walk without being winded, nothing to do but worry and think about holes in his lungs and shattered ribs. And read. But books can only distract so much. He can only rest so much. It’s maddening to him, being stuck in one place. The tv doesn’t help.

It’s worse when Nightwing is on the news.

Shootout. Footage of Nightwing getting hit. Footage of police scrambling. Footage of more gunshots. The news person screaming, the footage cuts back to the two anchors who look scared. It’s more than an hour when Nightwing drags himself through the window. Jason is there in a heartbeat, helping him as best he can, when the next thing he knows he’s yelling, screaming at him. Words tumbling out of their own accord, so fast he can’t keep up with them all, trying to breathe and scream and - and there Dick is, bleeding and smiling in front of him.

“I knew you cared, Little Wing.” 

* * *

He knows that words don’t come out right. Maybe it’s the pit, maybe it’s ptsd, or maybe his eloquence is all mental, but words are hard. Especially when it’s true, honest, bone chilling words that scare the shit out of him. Jason is much better at sarcasm than loving murmurs. Sarcasm is a way of life for him. But this moment is important, it needs to be real. Because he knows how he feels about Dick, but his mouth never says what he wants it to. So he’s writing a text to his person, who sits next to him right now. Writing it out, seeing the bold black against the bright white, makes him grin.

He hits send.

* * *

_LilWing: You know I love you, right?_


End file.
